[
F E AT U R E
]
Wade Bruton
Lisa Lewis Dubois’ influence on UNC Charlotte and the broader community, according to Philip L. Dubois, made him “a better chancellor.”
First Partner
University, community benefited from Lisa Lewis Dubois’ counsel BY J O N N E L L E D AV I S
30 UNC CHARLOTTE magazine
|
L
isa Lewis Dubois was 6 or 7 years old when her parents signed her up for tap and ballet lessons. For weeks and weeks she practiced in her tutu, “tap dancing my little heart out.” And then came the recital. “I thought I was great!” Dubois recalled recently. Her father thought differently. “Afterward, my dad came up to me and he said, ‘Honey, we’re going to concentrate on math.’ I never saw a tutu again!” She wasn’t much of a dancer, but she didn’t have to be. One of the many things Dubois’ father taught her was that she could be whatever she wanted. So she chose to become a lawyer like him. “He treated me as a complete equal and with respect,” she said. “I didn’t understand the
Summer 2020
difference between boys and girls in terms of being able to succeed.” Because of this lesson, Dubois enjoyed a long career as a criminal appellate attorney with the California Attorney General’s Office, as legal counsel to the speaker of the California State Assembly and later, a law instructor at the University of Wyoming. Of course, that was before she became UNC Charlotte’s first lady. But the experiences have been similar, Dubois observed. “In both cases you have to plan well in advance, you have to interact with people, you have to do your homework,” said Dubois, who earned undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she met UNC
